


Chameleonic

by recrudescence



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:04:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When River finally takes a fall, the result of an ill-conceived equation and a screwdriver on the cargo bay floor, Mal gives her a knowing look and totes her to the infirmary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chameleonic

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the Porn Battle prompt: genetic.

When River finally takes a fall, the result of an ill-conceived equation and a screwdriver on the cargo bay floor, Mal gives her a knowing look and totes her to the infirmary.

“I can’t for the life of me conjure what you two have in common other than an excess of brains and a lack of common sense.” Mal wastes no time coddling.

Simon looks down at his shoes—polished, even here; River knows it’s important to him, keeping up good habits before he loses them.

“DNA,” River chirps brightly, brandishing her arm, and Mal rolls his eyes as blood patters down. Simon sews her up tight, his mouth pressed even tighter.

Later, she’s sitting on her bed biting through the stitches, trying to pull out the thread, and that’s how Simon finds her. Blood on her teeth, gnawing like a feral animal. She can feel the fear swelling behind his sternum and the water that wants to swell in his eyes. He doesn’t let it because he has to put her first, always does, and she hates that she can’t be counted on to take care of herself anymore. She used to, she thinks. Graceful and strong, but not there anymore. Burned up like the tree by the riverbank at home.

She tries to tell him she didn’t mean to undo his work; there are too many foreign objects lodged and embedded in her and she needs to remove the ones she can, even the ones that are there for her own good. At the Academy, everything was for her own good, but saying so would only drive another nail into Simon’s heart and she needs her brother whole. Instead, she lets him clean her teeth and hold her close and bandage her all over again.

Her fingers pluck at her nightgown when he tries to dress her for bed, bunching it higher until his hands slip under the hem. It makes her giggle and kick off her panties, winding her arms around his neck and pulling his head down so he can kiss her. Sweat at the back of her neck, nipples skimming hard and tiny along his bare chest. All her blood is wiped away and patched up and they could be playing back on Osiris, in her bed with all the little-girl laciness their mother liked. Red and pretty and already wet under her skirt, nothing else underneath it but Simon’s fingers, surgeon-smart, since he’s visiting from his internship and paying attention to nothing but her. Always has, ever since she sniffed that sex was unproblematic provided both parties agreed and no offspring resulted, and then she’d looked at him with calculating eyes and said they could play a game if he wanted to.

She likes being filled up with pleasure instead of with hurt, loves the baseness of the act, the way it consumes until it’s only the two of them with nothing in the way. Nothing but cunt and cock and fucking and myriads of other dirty words that make River’s insides clench up in delight. On her knees, naked, Simon’s fingers slipping in and out of her, his tongue licking up the back of one thigh, ass, and then _between_, flick-lapping and pressing inside where she’s tight and closed and gradually opening for him the way he wishes she always would. Making her squirm and sigh and quietly whine, all of her self offered up. He can see the changes he makes this way, faster than medicine, sweeter than shots, and she thinks maybe it makes him love her a little more.

Mal doesn’t know this is something else they share: recklessness. Simon might seem reserved, but he can throw caution to the winds just as hard as his sister can. When she kissed him on Serenity for the first time, she thought he was afraid, seeing a glimpse of the old River before she was erased. The new River gets so mixed up in her own mind that sometimes he worries about things like ethics and consent. She can never quite kiss or convince all his reservations away. Simon never used to have any reservations with her.

_Be good for me, mei-mei_.

Stripped and straining, red-faced and damp-lashed, she nods. Simon’s hands pinching at her nipples as he takes her slowly from behind so she can’t see his face—he thinks he’s being kind—the two of them entangled on their sides like an illustration in one of Inara’s books or a poster on Jayne’s wall. Redness seeps through the wound on her arm and River makes sure to cover it after she comes.

Girls trade their bodies to men for far lesser things than forgiveness.


End file.
